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Nothing Like a Camping Trip For Family Bonding

I know it is summer and we are supposed to be talking about baseball and hot dogs and things like that but everybody talks about those things and has an opinion on the Cardinals early season inconsistencies.

Let’s talk about what families go through like the experience of going camping as a family with three young boys. It’s almost like a sport, many different sports if you really look at it.

First it is like the UFC, the United Fight Club as you have three boys, a wife and in laws enclosed in a tin wrapped camper the size of a one car garage all weekend with nothing to do except who is going to play the cell phone games. Is that really enjoying the outdoors?.

Then we have the entire experience of fishing itself. This should be called jousting or sword fighting as three kids stand on the shore with 6 foot rods that have hooks on the end of them. It was 90 degrees outside but all the kids had on sweatshirts as I spent the entire time pulling hooks out of each other’s clothing.

Then it actually came time to fish. The oldest boy who is ten was able to wade out in the water and get to the sweet spot and catch three fish while my other two sat on the shore throwing the rod 22 feet into the water with no hopes of catching a fish at all. So then what make it worst of all is that the oldest boy comes bragging back in that he caught three trout in an hour. The fight was then back on as it became a game of dodge ball or should I say rock dodge ball as the kids proceeded to throw stones at each other until they realized they could throw the stones in the water and make a big splash.

Now fishing was over and I had to worry about all of the other people fishing beating us up over disturbing their calm fishing waters with the game of rock toss. I thought it was going to be a calm afternoon by the water. The only positive was that I saw a bald eagle both days by the water and was able to get some really cool photos of it carrying off a fish. The entire aspect of cleaning the fish at the campground after we got back is an entire lesson in biology that would take three more columns to write about. Let’s just say it did not go well. I just kept telling myself all weekend that these are the memories that I will never forget.

Can’t Wait for World Cup Games

The World Cup is just a few days away and I can’t wait. There are not many things that happen only once every four years except the summer and Winter Olympics, and if you’re married there is probably something else you can think of but that is for a different column than sports.

This time around it will be even cooler as the United States has been so in the spotlight leading up to the Cup. They will either win all three games or lose all three. The team seems to be on both sides of the spectrum. I really think that not selecting Landon Donovan was a mistake, there is still time to add him though, so don’t be surprised if he is not on the final roster. May be a publicity stunt.